A Survival Exercise for Squad Eight
by K2theninja
Summary: Thirty six years have passed since the now famous ‘rookie nine’ took their first chuunin exams, they have now grown up, married and are parents to children of their own. The children of Hinata, Shino and Kiba succeed at being chosen for the next generati


A Survival Exercise for Squad Eight

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any characters associated in the story.

Thirty six years have passed since the now famous 'rookie nine' took their first chuunin exams, they have now grown up, married and are parents to children of their own. The children of Hinata, Shino and Kiba succeed at being chosen for the next generation of Konoha's genin. When their sensei is revealed to be none other than Sakura, their adventure as a squad starts off looking grim, especially with what she has planned for their first mission.

* * *

The Beginning

It was early in the morning when the selection of the eligible genin candidates at the ninja academy was given. The eager students making up squad eight just happened to be the children of the original squad eight of the now famous 'rookie nine' of a generation ago. The students chosen for the new generation of squad eight included Hintaro, the son of Naruto, now the sixth Hokage, and Hinata Hyuuga, the heiress of the great Hyuuga clan. Hintaro was a talented lad, who was skilled well above most of his peers, this had a tendency of making him a bit arrogant, and like his father, he could be reckless and headstrong.

The famous bug master clan of the Aburame's had their own canidate, Shino's twelve year old daughter Mimiru, a carefree and spirited girl, who was much more outgoing and talkative than her stoic father. Mimiru's mother was another bug master, but from a smaller group of butterfly users, not numerous or famous enough to be considered a clan yet. For Mimiru's mother, an arranged marriage to the Leaf Village's Shino Aburame turned out to be one of convenience and prestige in the community of bug masters.

The Inuzuka clan also had a member of theirs on the new squad eight. Kiba's daughter Kitanna, who like Kiba, was a rough and tumble fighter, a tomboy to the very core, Kitanna, who went by Kit, to her friends was always accompanied by her two dogs, Jinn and Yubi, who were puppies of Akamaru's. Kiba had married a local girl and continued in the family business of raising some of the finest nin-dogs for Konoha. Kitanna was always training with her dogs, and sometimes it could be difficult to see when her 'training' ended and when the 'playing' began. The three students had known each other for a couple years, since their parents had been close friends, so it wasn't too difficult to bond as squad mates when they got the news.

* * *

Squad Eight's Sensei

The three students of squad eight met in the classroom assigned to them, while they waited for their new sensei to arrive. They were told their sensei would be a jounin level ninja and would continue to train them to work as a team and become better ninja. "I wonder who'll it'll be?" Mimiru said, "I hope it's Choji, then we'll get to eat a lot" Kit responded, "I'd rather have Shikamaru, then the training would be easy," Hintaro added. The mystery of squad eight's sensei was soon answered when the door slid open and standing in the doorway was a young woman with a sleeveless red dress, pink, shoulder length hair and bright, sparkly, green eyes. "Hello, everybody, my name is Sakura Haruno, and I'll be your Jounin ninja level sensei." "A kunoichi?" Hintaro said, almost in disbelief, "How challenged are we going to get with training?" Kit and Mimiru both gave an angry glare at the arrogance of Hintaro, while Sakura gave him an icy stare that made Hintaro know full well he wasn't off to a good start. "Well I see you've got your father's intelligence" Sakura told Hintaro, clearly as an insult to the perceived slight against her earlier. "Well then, let's begin, Let's start by introducing ourselves to each other, you know, your name, what you like, what you dislike, your dreams for the future, hobbies, that sort of thing, starting with you, the cocky boy." Hintaro nervously stood up in front of the women and slowly stuttered before finding the right words to begin.

"I'm Hintaro Uzumaki, I'm the son of the Hokage and my mother is the heiress of the Hyuuga clan, I'm the closest thing this village has to royalty, and more than skilled enough to be the next great ninja. Like my father, I never give up or back down out of a fight, my dream is to be as great a ninja as my uncle Neji, a true ninja genius, I dislike being put down because of misconceptions of being an Uzumaki or shy like my mother. My hobbies include training with my grandfather or taking care of my baby cousin Tobi (Hanobi had married Konohamaru a year before Hintaru graduated from the ninja academy and had just given birth to their son prior to this story.) "Interesting" Sakura said, taking the information given by Hintaro into account. "Ok, now you, with the sunglasses," Sakura said, pointing to Mimiru.

Mimiru, was quick to begin her own speech to her team and sensei. "My name's Mimiru Aburame, I come from the Leaf Village's Aburame clan, I enjoy accompanying my father and mother on missions, my hobby consists of collecting bugs and dancing, I dislike rainy days because then I can't go out and collect bugs and it's too depressing to enjoy dancing, and my dream is to be a great bug master like my parents. "Allright, not bad" Sakura told her pupil, secretly Sakura was little grossed out at the thought, but then again she never did get used to the fact that Shino had bugs living inside him, and now she was stuck training his kid. "Finally how about you?" Sakura said, pointing to Kitanna.

Kit wasted no time beginning. "My name's Kitanna Inuzuka, I help my parent's raise nin dogs for the village and I always travel with my two dogs, Jinn and Yubi, they're actually puppies from my father's dog. I enjoy a good spar or fight, I dislike people assuming I'm some pretty girl who can't fight, and my hobbies include training with my dogs to come up with awesome ninja techniques." "I wonder if she's as reckless as her father?" Sakura thought to herself, it certainly seems to be. "Ok well I hope you three found that information useful, we'll begin our first mission tomorrow morning, bright and early, meet me at the third training ground at 5:30 a.m. Oh and don't eat breakfast, I wouldn't want you to get sick." "Wait, what's the mission and why all the restrictions?" Kit asked, "If I tell you, you won't like it" Sakura responded. "Well tell us anyway" Hintaro interjected, a little annoyed at Sakura's smugness. "It's a survival exercise and a pass or fail test, with a 66.66 chance you'll fail." Sakura grinned, "I told you, you wouldn't like it, now go and get some rest, you're going to need it."

* * *

The Test Begins

The next morning all three students had met at the arranged spot a full half hour early, groggy, tired and hungry. "I didn't get a wink of sleep, I was so excited" Kit said, between yawns. "I didn't even eat dinner last night, I was so jittery," Mimiru added. Hintaru just mumbled something under his breath, not particularly caring what his teammates had done, he just wanted to get the test over with, and start on some real missions. Hours past and there was no sign of Sakura, "I can't believe she's late!" Kit hollered at the other two, as if yelling at her team would make Sakura show up sooner, Hintaru just ignored Kit's yelling and focused on meditating, while Mimiru pranced through the field chasing butterflies to keep her mind off her hunger.

Finally at 11:30 Sakura arrived, with a puff of smoke, and apologized to the team, something about getting lost on the path of life or some other excuse. She sat an alarm clock on the middle of three training posts, "I set the clock to go off at 12:30, that'll give the three of you exactly one hour to get one of these two bells," Sakura said, holding them up, and letting them chime once. "If you don't get a bell by then, you will go without lunch and be eliminated from the Genin advancements. Any questions?"  
"Why is there only two bells, when there are three of us?" Mimiru asked, perplexed. "That way at least one of you will be guaranteed to go without lunch and be tied to one of these posts and forced to watch the other two eat (provided they get the bells) and be sent packing back to the academy for additional training." "But why go to all the training of selecting us if only nine can make it in the end?" Kit asked, "Wouldn't it be easier to hold a battle royale between us and let the winners continue?" Kit had asked, confident that if that were the case she'd still make the cut. "Life as a Konoha Shinobi is more than fighting Kitanna, a ninja must see thru deception, that's an important lesson my Sensei taught me, and you three will learn in time also." Sakura replied.

Looking at her watch, she added, "Before we begin, you will be able to use any means necessary, even kunai and shuriken, to get these bells, If you're not prepared to use fatal force against me, you won't be fit to be Shinobi for the village." With a sigh she shrugged. "You can begin…" Before the three had time to react, Sakura was gone in a puff of smoke. The three members of Squad eight quickly reacted and the test began.

* * *

'White Eyes'

Hintaru let out a grin as he made a series of hand seals, activating the blood line trait of his mother's family, the Byakugan. With this visual technique Hintaru would be able to spot Sakura no matter where she hid herself, even if it were under or behind multiple objects. Also it rendered most genjitsus useless. Hintaru soon spotted Sakura with his Byakugan and let his team mates be aware of her location, but before the ohers had a chance to catch Sakura where she had been, Sakura let out a fierce punch on the ground that caused it to shake and the three of them temporarily lost their balance, and left them more then a little stunned at the sight of her superhuman strength.

"Wow, how did she do that?" Kit asked, a little shaken at what had happened. "She placed a large amount of chakra in her had and precisely released it as she hit the ground causing maximum damage" Mimiru explained. "Hmm..not good for me" thought Hintaru, in order for his 64 palm rotation to be effective, he'd have to get up close, but if their sensei could throw punches like that, there would be little opportunity for success, no matter how fast he was. "Looks like we're going to have to rely heavily on your bugs Mimi," Kit said, clearly grasping Hintaru's situation. "I'll do my best to locate sensei with my Byakugan, but the rest will be up to you two" Hintaru said, "Just make sure to suceede." "Don't worry about that" Kit said more than a little sure of herself.

* * *

Like Father, Like Daughter

While Hintaru was busy tracking Sakura with his Byakugan and trying to keep Sakura occupied when she was close by, Mimiru was in the midst of her own meditation. Having trouble concentrating because of her missed dinner and breakfast, Mimiru was able to conjure up enough chakra to release a swarm of bugs that appeared to travel away from the action. Meanwhile, after that task was over she turned to face her Sensei in the woods.

At first Sakura was able to keep the three of them at bay, using her precision chakra controlled taijutsu. She had now focused on Mimiru, the one student who stood the greatest chance at succeeding. Sakura remembered the fight Shino had at the Chuunin exams thirty six years ago, and knew Mimiru's father could use his bugs to fight mid to long distances, and particularly favored the bugs sneak attacking from behind, Sakura also knew the bugs Shino had, were devastating in large numbers. To try to give herself an edge, Sakura tried some genjitsu on Mimiru. "Now for Shinobi tatic number two, genjitsu" Sakura said with a smile, eagerly anticipating what would happen next.

Mimiru was in the woods, when she walked right into Sakura's trap, Mimiru soon found herself facing off against almost two dozen Sakura's, Mimiru launched a barrage of kunai, only to have them harmlessly pass thru the illusions. Sakura returned her own barrage of kunai at Mimiru, only to have Mimiru dissolve into thousands of beetles. "I see he's taught his daughter well" Sakura thought, "Now where is the real one hiding?" The real Mimiru peering through some bushes, let out a sigh of relief, her bug clone kept her safe but was unable to draw out the real Sakura. Since her bugs were immune to the genjitsu trap, Mimiru was able to be warned by her bugs, and now for the moment, She was on equal footing with her sensei, well for strategy anyways.

After what seemed like an eternity, the real Sakura emerged from her hiding place, not realizing Mimiru had avoided total control of the genjitsu, Sakura was now standing among her illusions, 'Now's my chance!" Mimiru exclaimed, "Iron wing Barrage" She yelled as she jumped out of the bushes. "Sakura gave a panicked look as butterflies appeared to surround the air around her and watched as the wings quickly stiffened and rotating faster and faster. After reaching maximum velocity, the butterflies, came towards Sakura blindingly fast. Any other lesser skilled shinobi would have been cut to pieces or severally pierced by that attack. However, Sakura had learned a lot from her sensei of team seven and was about to teach her pupil a thing or two about combat against a jounin.

When the smoke cleared from Mimiru's attack, Mimiru half expected to see the bloody remains of her Sensei, only to be shocked to discover a log in the place where Sakura had been standing. Mimiru instinctively reached for her kunai and turned to lunge. However Sakura had been quicker. Sakura grabbed a hold of Mimiru's wrist and forced her to drop her weapon. Mimiru in turn contorted herself in a fashion to try to land a punch on Sakura. Sakura easily evaded the punch and disappeared. Mimiru looked around to see where Sakura could have gone, but Sakura was nowhere to be seen.

When she least expected it, Mimiru felt a tug on her leg and the next thing she knew, her head was barely above the ground. Sakura had used an Earth style, headhunter jutsu and was able to trap Mimiru for the moment. "Never let your guard down or leave your jutsu's open for the enemy to see, they might use it against you." Sakura explained, although she didn't have much time to get her advice out, because almost a moment afterwards, two mutts came spiraling out of the trees and spraying their urine around Sakura with impressive accuracy. "Triple dynamic air markings!" Kit could be heard yelling this to her dogs in the distance. "Well, now to focus on your other friend then," Sakura smiled as she cart wheeled out of the way of the dogs and punched a few trees to block her path, in order to slow the dogs down. Mimiru in the mean time struggled to get out of the ground.

* * *

On The Prowl

While Mimiru had been keeping Sakura occupied, Kitanna and her dogs were tracking Sakura by her scent. Like Mimiru's bugs, Kit's sense of smell would allow her to not get fooled by Sakura's genjitsu. Jinn and Yubi soon found Sakura who had apparently got the best of Mimiru, Kit wasn't surprised though, for all the similarities she had with her father, Mimiru was much more impulsive and flashy. In Kit's estimation, it would be a while before Mimiru learned the art of patience with strategy, or at least the way Mimiru's father had mastered. Kit on the other hand, could care less about overall strategy and holding a 'trump' card in battle, she was just like her father, and would just as soon get a fight over and done with before an enemy had time to think. So when she got the chance, she had her dogs try to dynamically mark her sensei, at the very least, it could be the only chance she'd get to have her dogs make a mess on her sensei.

The older puppy Jinn, was known to have a very acidic urine that would cause intense burning to the person sprayed with it, while the younger dog's, Yubi, was very bitter tasting, Kit enjoyed employing this rather nasty technique in playground brawls as an easy way to get an easy hit or two on her opponent. After all, most people where too distracted, trying to stop the burning sensation or lose the bitter taste, that they completely left themselves open to attacks from Kit.

Sakura had managed to avoid a direct hit of the air markings attack but was still caught by Jinn's spray. Sakura, rolled off to the side of her escape and kicked a tree or two in the way to keep the dogs from getting to her. She then used a basic healing technique to heal the rash left by dog's attack. While her back was turned, Kit came spiraling in using her father's fang over fang high speed rotation attack technique.

One of Kit's dog's also later joined in the attack, (the other was helping Mimiru get unstuck from the ground) only to receive a chakra infused punch of Sakura's into a tree. Kitanna herself barely missed a punch to the face, but with the chakra in Sakura's hand, the sensei was able to leave a scratch across her pupil's face. After Kit got up she wiped the blood off her chin, licked off her palm and smiled, the taste of blood, made Kitanna more excited, and she knew her dogs could continue to take a beating "Let's go!", Kit told her dogs, as she smiled and continued her spinning attacks on Sakura.

* * *

Nearing the End

While Sakura was busy dodging Kitanna's attacks, Hintaru was able to get close enough that he tried to help by blocking Sakura's chakra points, however, Sakura moved too fast for him to accurately hit any. Any glancing blow Hintaru was able to get, was soon removed by Sakura's medical techniques. By the time Mimiru reentered the fray, Sakura was running circles around Kit and Hintaru, using replacement jutsu after replacement justu. By constantly keeping Hintaru and Kitanna at bay, Sakura was able to get a couple of direct hits on both of them. At the end of her fun, Sakura had now left Kitanna and her dogs, pretty much down for the count, and Hintaru was reeling. To make matters worse for the team, only ten minutes were left on the clock.

"Damn it" cursed Hintaru, "Why couldn't you two pull the your own weight?" Hintaru said, discussed and a little bit arrogant at the perception that his Byagugan was the only reason they were faring as well as they were. "Hey, I only saw you take one of Sensei's hits, my dog's and I took more then our fair share of them" Kitanna reminded Hintaru. 'If you don't want our help, feel free to be her punching bag next time." Before Mimiru could respond or get her teammates to stop bickering, she too dropped to her knees, "Mimiru!!" Shouted Hintaru, "Are you OK?" "I'm fine, just a little weak from being without food that's all, my bugs are starting to take their toll on the remains of my chakra reserves." Mimiru said, embarrassed that her bug master weakness was having a profound effect on her at the moment.

Sakura jumped down from the tree she had been hiding in while she watched the teamwork of squad eight disintegrated into the useless bickering she recalled her team had done with her sensei, Kakashi, so many years ago. "Well I guess we can call an early end to the test if this is all that the three of you are going to do. If you three can't come up with a decent attempt to get the bells from me, maybe the three of you don't deserve to be trained as ninja." Sakura spoke, mocking the three genin candidates. "We'll see about that! Don't underestimate me!" Hintaru yelled as he was up on his feet and charged towards Sakura. Sakura easily side swiped Hintaru and gave him a powerful kick in the rear, sending him face first into the post. Sakura turned and faced the two girls, "Either one of you want another serving of defeat?" Sakura asked, not realizing she would be making a near fatal mistake.

As soon as Sakura had turned and faced the girls, Mimiru sprung into action, "Don't mind if I do!" Mimiru smirked, as she rapidly made a series of hand seals, Sakura turned around just a moment too late, and was only able to catch the slightest glance of a horde of beetles crawling out from the grass and over her lower extremities. "Remember sensei, never give your opponent an opening, I'd say I learnt that lesson well don't you?" Mimiru asked, mockingly.

Sakura's eyes had grown larger at the surprise appearance of Mimiru's beetles, she could feel them biting into her legs and slowly sucking her chakra out, however there wasn't enough to leave her defenseless. Sakura began to brush off many of the bugs, and complement Mimiru for her minor success. Once again though, Sakura was cut short by a heavily panting Kitanna as she barreled forward to try to tackle Sakura. Sakura did a half spin and Kitanna was tripped in the process. However, because of all that, Sakura let her guard down on Hintaru, who had come to again, and almost in arm's shot of the bells, " A thousan years of death!" Hintaru shouted as he formed the tiger seal and aimed it right at Sakura's behind. Sakura, who was not balanced at the time once again did a half turn spin and was barely able to stay balanced on one slightly bug covered leg, as Hintaru came sailing by grasping for the bells. In the end he had touched them but was unable to get one for himself. As he prepared for his crash landing on the earth, he could hear the ringing of the alarm before his head felt the thundering thud of contact.

* * *

The Aftermath

"Well that was a good try for everyone" Sakura said, amazed that her group had fared pretty well, all things considered. However, the three of you all failed, so I am going to give the three of you one more chance. One of you however, will have to be tied to a post and will not get lunch, if anyone shares their lunch with the one tied to the post, you all will fail, decide among yourselves and we'll go from there. Hintaru, argued that he should get a lunch, since his Byakugan would be able to find Sakura anywhere. Kitanna argued that She deserved a meal since she had taken the blunt of Sakura's attacks and needed to recover along with her dogs. But everyone agreed that Mimiru deserved to eat something since it was her bugs that had the best chance of winning against Sakura. "Well somebody needs to be tied to the post and go without lunch, hurry up and decide, or I could do that for you." Sakura said, getting impatient.

"I'll do it" Mimiru responded, she walked over to the post and allowed herself to be tied to it. The others tried to persuade her not to, even agreeing to leave it to random chance to see which one of the others would go instead. However, Mimiru wasn't going to be the one to deprive her team mates from their lunches, and reluctantly let herself be tied to the post, even as her stomach was growling louder with each passing minute. "I'll be back in a half an hour, and we'll try the test again, but remember, Mimiru doesn't get lunch, and if anybody feeds her part of their lunch, that person will go without eating the rest of their lunch, understood?" Sakura said, as she left out of the team's sight.

Hintaru and Kitanna tried to eat their lunches and ease their minds, but neither one could do anything about their desire to help their poor teammate Mimiru, after all, she had succeeded at trapping Sakura where they had failed. "I've got it" Kitanna whispered as loud as she dared. "If we both eat two thirds of our meals, we can give the rest to Mimiru and then we'll all have had the same amount of lunch. Sensei said that if either one of us shared our meal with her we wouldn't get to eat the rest of ours, but if we were to eat just enough, we could give an equal amount of lunch to Mimiru and stand a better chance for the second test.

After all, we need Mimiru's bugs, since that's the only distance attack we can use on Sakura." Kitanna reasoned. "But…we'd be breaking the rules," Hintaru complained. "Sakura wouldn't be happy" Kitanna shot back, "Forget about the rules, if Mimiru's not strong for the next match, we all could fail." "I understand" Hintaru said, after quickly eating his two thirds he handed the remains of his lunch to Mimiru, Kitanna did the same. "Now understand, I'm doing this so we all can hopefully pass, otherwise, do you know how bad this would look, the Hokage's son being disrespectful and disobeying?" Hintaru asked. "Thank you, the both of you, I appreciate what you're doing" Mimiru said, in between bites.

"What do you think you're doing!?!" Sakura yelled, in such a manner that the three genin of squad eight froze in fear. "I told you specifically Mimiru was not to get a lunch but you disobeyed me!" "What do you have to say for yourselves? Especially you Hintaru? What would your father think?!?" "Please don't blame them sensei!" Mimiru blurted out, "they were just trying to be nice, I didn't want them to honestly." Shut up Mimiru!" Kitanna said, cutting her off, "We did that so we could stand a better chance at beating you this next round. You had an unfair advantage of catching us off guard due to hunger, so Mimiru couldn't fully use her powers. But now we'll definitely get those bells, even if Hintaru and I aren't at full strength, we fight as a team, and no one gets left behind!" "That's right" Hintaru added, as he prepared the Hyuuga style gentle fist pose.

"In that case…" Sakura said, pausing to think of the right words to end her sentence, "You pass!" "We..we..pass?" Mimiru asked, clearly confused. "Yes three pass" Sakura said again. "You see this lesson was taught to me a long time ago by my sensei, Ninja that break rules are considered scum, but those who will not help their friends, even if it means breaking a rule, are worse then scum!" "Did any of you stop and see the memorial before the test began?" Sakura asked the group. "Yeah we all did" Hintaru spoke, for the group. Sakura went on to explain, "That memorial has the names of all the village ninja who died protecting the village during times of trouble and war. Their deaths are something to be remembered for because they allowed others to continue to live in peace, people like their friends, family, neighbors, do you guys understand?"

Sakura was rewarded by an astounding "Yes" from Hintaru, Mimiru and Kitanna. "Now then, we shall begin on some real missions, to further refine your teams, cooperation skills, let's see now, Mrs. Lee needs a baby sitter, Mr. Wong has a garden that needs weeded, The Chow family has potatoes that need dug up, and there's a report of a missing pet cat, a Tora jr. belonging to the Feudal Lord's wife…" "Oh man, I wanted a real mission, not some stupid chores, this is not the stuff real ninjas should be doing!" Hintaru could be heard complaining, at least when he wasn't being drowned out by Mimiru and Kitanna's laughter.

THE END


End file.
